The Malaysian Insight

SENIOR lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had wanted to become the attorney-general and asked for Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s endorsement during the previous Barisan Nasional administration.

The prime minister said this today when asked if he had previously instructed Shafee to become the prosecutor in Anwar Ibrahim’s Sodomy 2 trial at the federal court stage.

“According to him (Shafee) – I love him so much – Shafee wanted so much to become the attorney-general. He came to see me.

“He said the attorney-general at the time could not win against Anwar in the Sodomy 2 trial. I said: ‘If you think you can win, you see Najib-lah.’”

“At the time, I was still good with Najib,” Dr Mahathir said in a press conference today.

The attorney-general at the time was Abdul Gani Patail.

Last Saturday, Shafee said that it was Dr Mahathir who pushed for him to become the special prosecutor in Anwar’s appeal.

Shafee had said that Dr Mahathir did not have confidence in the Attorney-General’s Chambers to competently manage the appeal.

“As a background to this ad hoc appointment of mine, (the then-prime minister) Najib was not keen with the idea of appointing me as the prosecutor by way of fiat for these appeals, because he did not want to offend the then attorney-general, Gani Patail. In fact, he was most reluctant.

“However, it was Dr Mahathir who insisted that I be appointed as the special prosecutor in Anwar’s appeals, as Dr Mahathir did not have the confidence that the Attorney-General’s Chambers would be able to competently manage the appeals,” he had said in a statement.

He said it was probably due to the Attorney-General’s Chambers losing the case at the high court, and Anwar’s first sodomy case at the federal court. – September 14, 2018.